Earlier in the day the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge made an impromptu visit to Royal British Legion volunteers in Kensington High Street ahead of Remembrance Sunday on a tour of the capital in a 1960s Routemaster bus.

Prince William went into the operating theatre wearing full blue medical scrubs at the Wolfson Surgical Suite to see a woman undergo a breast reconstruction and observe a man have a tumour removed from his bladder in a pioneering operation.

Lead surgeons Stuart James and Pardeep Kumar said the duke was fascinated by the procedures.

He also met a patient whose cancer was treated with the hospital’s state-of-the-art CyberKnife radiotherapy machine.

Cally Palmer, chief executive of The Royal Marsden where William is president, said: “We were delighted to welcome our president back to the hospital. We are very grateful for the Duke’s support for our patients and for the work that we do at The Royal Marsden.

“It was a pleasure to have the opportunity to show him a glimpse of the complex and pioneering surgery that takes place on a daily basis at the hospital.”